The LEGO Group announces partnership with social enterprise, EasyPeasy, to support home learning and encourage more quality playful learning experiences in homes across UK
The LEGO Group this week announced that they are partnering with the digital early years social enterprise, EasyPeasy. The partnership will focus on innovations to support the home learning environment for families with children aged 2-5. The organisations came together through a shared belief in the benefits of learning-through-play and a commitment to make quality play experiences accessible to all children.
Secretary of State for Education, Damian Hinds joined families in the Reception class at Dunraven Primary School in South London, to learn more from parents directly involved in the first stage of the partnership. The Secretary of State praised the LEGO Group and EasyPeasy’s work as a welcome innovation in how to support the home learning environment, a goal shared by the Department for Education’s own ‘Hungry Little Minds’ campaign, which also launched today.
For the first stage of the partnership, the LEGO Group and EasyPeasy have worked together to create eight new videos to inspire families with new ideas of how to learn through play at home. Some of the videos include activities that can be played using LEGO DUPLO bricks, and all the games can be adapted to play with things commonly found in the home. The games will be distributed via EasyPeasy’s app, where they will sit alongside a bank of more than 60 other learning games and activities.
All games on EasyPeasy are designed to help develop skills that are crucial in early years such as language and communication, social and emotional and cognitive skills such as cognitive self-regulation.
The partnership is initially being piloted with 500 families in areas of lower than average social mobility in London, Southampton, Luton, Bedford and Hastings. For the second stage of the partnership, the LEGO Group will continue to support EasyPeasy’s development so that families using the app can benefit from additional new ways to learn through play. This will include a further roll-out of the LEGO learning games to 10,000 families who will have access to EasyPeasy through projects funded by the Department for Education and others.
Global Head of Social Impact at the LEGO Group, Olivia Lankester said:
“We are delighted to have entered into a partnership with EasyPeasy, who share our long-standing commitment to help children learn and develop skills through play including critical thinking, creativity, confidence and communication skills. Play has a magic quality of creating meaningful moments between caregiver and child. With early results showing that games and expert voice videos shared via the partnership are boosting caregiver’s confidence in playing with their young children we are excited to bring this experience to more families and explore how to create further social impact together.”
Founder and CEO of EasyPeasy, Jen Lexmond said:
“Our community of parents use EasyPeasy to discover, play, create and share learning games with their children to develop the skills they need to succeed at school and beyond. Our mission is to help all parents give their children the best start in life, regardless of background. We’re delighted that LEGO shares these goals and wants to support us to reach families. We’re excited that LEGO will also explore ways of supporting our future development so that families can play and learn more with EasyPeasy.”
Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning at Cambridge University, Dr Paul Ramchandani said:
“Play is the language of childhood, it is how children explore and understand their world. It is the primary way in which children hear about and interpret life around them. Evidence shows that providing opportunities for all children to play supports their social, language and emotional development and allows them the opportunity to fulfil their potential. Investing in play and the life of children is an investment like no other.”